In article <3ijn3a$abc at ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
Fegan1 at ix.netcom.com (Jim Fegan) writes:
[snip]
> Does anyone know of a gel that would provide a suitable matrix
>for the electrophoresis? If you could email me any suggestions you
>might have, I would greatly appreciate it.
>Dear Jim,
Polyacrylamide gels would work; however, there might not be any cost
savings and THE MONOMER IS VERY TOXIC. Perhaps there is an agar which is
cheaper than agarose, and which would work. I seem to recall that agarose is
just purified agar from which (mostly) ions have been removed. For education
purposes, this may be satisfactory, or dialysis of the agar might yield a
suitable form. There is always paper electrophoresis, but I am not sure of
the relative costs of paper vs agarose. Also, conceivably, a method could be
worked out to reuse the agarose gels by, e.g., applying a voltage across the
flat sides of the gel rather than along them. There are referrences about
removing the electrophoresed material from gels this way, but I don't know
them offhand. Good luck.
Yours,
Bill Tivol